By 2050, the global burden of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD) is set to grow substantially, yet no effective interventions to prevent or delay ADRD have been identified. The NIA-funded Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocols (HCAPs) in the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and its International Partner Studies are a major innovation that facilitate, for the first time, scientifically valid cross-national comparisons of modifiable risk and protective factors for ADRD. The HCAP network includes countries with a diversity of global populations encompassing 75% of the world’s older population.
Dataset: Cognitive test, informant, biomarkers, and demographic/health data from HCAP studies (and associated parent studies) in the US, Mexico, Chile, England, South Africa, China, and India. These data are curated under R01’s led Drs. Gross and Kobayashi (R01 AG070953) and Drs. Gross and Lee (R01 AG030153).
Content Experts: David Weir, PhD and Kenneth Langa, MD MPH, (Institute for Survey Research, U. Michigan), Richard Jones, ScD (Brown), Alden Gross, PhD (Johns Hopkins), Jinkook Lee, PhD (USC), Lindsay Kobayashi (U. Michigan), Emily Briceno-Abreu (U. Michigan), Miguel Arce Rentería (Columbia).
Proposed Analyses: Methods to deal with practice effects given only two waves of data. Differential item functioning of tests by language and country. Simulation methods to handle pre-baseline selection into the studies. Cross-national comparisons of prevalence of cognitive impairment, and relationship to major sociodemographic and socioeconomic markers. Specific Training Areas: (1) IRT, (2) Practice effects, (3) Cross-national research.